14 Stories (2 page)

“Leonard,” she yelled, “did you hear anything like a gunshot before? Something that wasn't a car backfiring or from a television show?”

“I did,” Leonard said through the door. “From right where I'm sitting. But I didn't know what to figure with this town, so I forgot about it. Why, is someone hurt?”

Over the phone the desk sergeant took down the name, address, apartment and telephone number of Mrs. Lang. “You sure someone will be home when we get there?” he said.

“We'll stay here till the police come,” Mr. Singerton said.

“What's your connection with the mother and the boy?”

“A neighbor.”

“A neighbor around the neighborhood, in the building or a roomer in Mrs. Lang's apartment?”

“In the building, though I don't see what bearing that has on the matter. When the questions get that personal I sort of feel I shouldn't have gotten involved.”

“All right,” the sergeant said. “Just stay where you are and a man will be right over. And don't touch the bullet. Leave everything in its place.”

“He said not to touch the bullet,” Mr. Singerton said to Mrs. Lang, opening his fist and showing her the bullet. “What do you think they'll do when they find out I did?”

“Why don't you put it back where you found it?” Warren said.

“With my prints all over it? Besides, if they find out, I'll get in more trouble that way.”

“Wipe them off why don't you, but I told you not to touch it.”

“Thank you.
He told me
. If I'd been smart I should have let him pass when he came flying downstairs. I never should have left my flat for cigarettes—never should have been smoking, in fact. Cancer I'll get, and also a jail sentence. In fact, I never should have taken my first puff when I was young and everyone said don't take your first puff, Willy, because it will lead to bad things. Little did they know. Do you smoke, Warren?”

“Me? I'm only ten.”

“Well don't, you hear? Don't even experiment. Take my troubles with the police now as an example why not to.”

“‘Dear Mom,'” Loey read. “‘I'm sorry for what sadness to you and disrespect for the family my death this way will cause you, but all I ask is that you try not to be too sad and try to understand me. I've thought about killing myself for more than a year now. I tried to work things out for myself many other ways, but everything I did always made things even worse, which you know for me is really not too hard to believe. After the business went, Sarah and the kids went soon after that and it was just too much for me. And then all my so-called friends went. I suppose they thought I'd sponge on them or else be too maudlin a person to be with, now that my business and wife and—' I can't go on,” Loey said. She gave the note to Ron, began crying. He unhooked his arm from hers and said “Maybe this letter isn't a joke at all.”

“You mean you still think someone could think up a joke like that?”

“Yes.”

“But the letter writer even put his mother's name, address, city, state and phone number on top of the page. Now why would a joker go to that far extent in making a joke?”

“To make the joke seem more real?”

“He'd write a long letter like this and put all that information about a woman on top of the page and then sail it out the window hoping that someone he had never seen before and would never see unless he's now looking at us from one of those windows, would find the note and think the suicide story is real?”

“I didn't say I was positive it was a joke. I only said I maybe still think it is.” He read the note: “‘…too maudlin a person' etcetera, ‘children were gone,' period. ‘I don't know. I can't explain anything anymore. I'm sick. Blame the whole affair on my emotional sickness. I'm sorry, mom. I love you. I hate for the pain I know I'm going to inflict on you. You've been the dearest person in my life. Of course Greta and Zane are dear, but they're across the country and too young to help. This note's too long. I love you, mom. It's silly, but if I could live it would be most to spare you the pain of my death. I was almost going to say “To help you live through the pain of my death,” which is why I said before “It's silly.” And now I'm getting too silly for a suicide note, besides too long. Always my love. Your devoted son, Gene.'”

“The note's real,” Ron said. “I feel awful feeling it wasn't I think we should call the police about this, as that mother should get her note.”

“No she shouldn't,” Loey said, and grabbed the note from him and tore it up and threw the pieces in the gutter. She ran across the street and around the corner.

“There's a Mr. Eugene A. Randall in 1403,” the desk clerk told the operator on the phone. “It's a double occupancy he's in, and though he's renting it as such, he's a single.”

“Well I hate to be a busybody, Mr. Hire. But 1403's been buzzing me for some time now, and when I said ‘Hello, may I help you?' all I heard was heavy breathing.”

“Is that room still on the line?”

She switched 1403 off Hold, heard the same kind of heavy breathing, said “Hello? Mr. Randall? This is Mrs. Vega again, your hotel operator. Is anything wrong? I said, is anything wrong?” She switched 1403 to Hold and said “Still on it, Mr. Hire, breathing just as regularly. Being new here I don't want to be advising you your business, but I really think something's the matter.”

Mr. Hire dialed the hotel detective's extension, but nobody was in. He checked in his book of private listings, called Operator and told her to page Detective Feuer on his pocket pager and have him contact Mr. Hire on extension 78 regarding a possible hotel accident.

“Hello?” Mrs. Vega said in his head, “is anything the matter, 1403? If it is then say so. Say ‘Help' if you can't say anything else. Well if this is Mr. Randall and anything is wrong with you, then someone's coming right up, Mr. Randall. I'm sure they'll be right there.”

Someone knocked, rang the bell. “Mr. Randall, you in?” a man said. “Better use the passkey,” another man said. “What did he look like?” the first man said. “I don't know,” a woman said, “I never saw him. When I brought him his towels, he was in the bedroom. When I brought up glasses and ice for whiskey, he was in the bathroom. He left a good tip both times, though. And never any noise from him till now, sir.” The door opened. Lots of legs and stockings and shoes. “Oh God,” the woman said. “Oh God, oh God,” and she ran screaming down the long hall. She knocked over her cleaning cart. Doors in the corridor opened, heads looked out. “What's all the commotion about?” a woman guest said. “What's with this hotel?” a male guest said. “Noisy—the worst,” and he slammed his door. “The doctor will be here shortly, Mr. Randall,” a man kneeling beside him said. I'm the hotel manager. Try and rest. Don't speak.”

“Now you say you picked up this bullet on the roof here?” the policeman said.

“I didn't pick it up,” Warren said. “He did,” pointing to Mr. Singerton. “I told him not to, but he wouldn't listen.”

“You should have known better, Mr. Singerton.”

“I probably did, but got overeager. I wanted to see if the boy was telling the truth. If the bullet was warm, recently fired.”

“The sun—lots of things could have warmed it. Not hoping there's a next time—please be more careful? For now I'll report it, and if anything comes in about a shooting here around the time Warren mentioned, then your phoning might be some use.” He got up. “Thanks for the coffee, Mrs. Lang.”

“Not at all. You finished also, Mr. Singerton?”

“Finished.” He handed her his mug, gave a dirty look to Warren.

“I'm sorry,” Warren said to him. “I forgot.”

“Forgot what?” the policeman said.

“Oh, I forgot I wasn't supposed to say anything about how I wasn't supposed to tell him how I told him not to touch the bullet on the roof. That it was evidence.”

Ron caught up with Loey in a drugstore. She was sitting at the counter spooning the whipped cream off a hot chocolate into her mouth. He sat beside her, showed a handful of pieces of torn note. “I think I got every one of them. And I still believe his mother should get it.”

“Let's forget we ever read it, Ron. Ever found it?”

“How? Just by pushing it out of our heads? And why try and forget something that maybe really is a joke and now an even bigger one on us because we took it so seriously. And then maybe the man who wrote it was telling the truth but hasn't killed himself yet. I just thought of that. Maybe he's right this moment planning to kill himself tonight or tomorrow morning and this note fell out of his pocket and by phoning the police we can still stop him. That is, if it isn't a joke.”

“It isn't a joke.”

The fountain man said “Did I hear you say something about someone's suicide note?”

“Not mine or hers, or maybe nobody's. We're not sure. You have a phone we can call the police on?”

“Go through the rear door there into the hotel lobby. They got plenty, all supervised. Ours have all been ripped or kicked out.”

“A man, you should've seen him,” Anna said in the female employees' washroom. “Room an ugly mess, blood all over his face, a black hole in the side of his cheek, half his ear off as all chewed through. I saw it once and ran as I never did. A Mr. Randall.”

“Randall?” a typist in Accounting said. “No, I didn't see his bill today. What room number?”

“1403. Such a clean nice man. I never saw him once since his two days here, but he gave me big tips all the times I came in his room. Once for extra towels. He yelled out to me from the bedroom he liked to bathe a lot. And a second for glasses and ice for whiskey. And one more time just now I remember. What was it again? He called Service to bring up two real down or no-rubber pillows, and he tipped me for that also. Left the money right where the used whiskey glasses were.”

“That's something I've always been curious about. Because I can't see how you girls can know for sure what change lying around when you're cleaning up is for a tip and what change was left by mistake.”

“We don't. But if you want to make enough living at our job, then you have to think all change lying around except on the bed or dresser, if all his other pocket things are there also, is yours. That is, if there's only one pile of change and it doesn't come up to a lot more than a dollar for one day let's say, but just to around fifty to a dollar in cents. But if it has odd pennies in the change, meaning one to four but not five or ten exact, then we also don't take. Then we think the change was left by accident, because no tipper leaves odd pennies.”

Easy,
easy
, EASY, Mr. Randall thought as he was being lifted onto the stretcher. He wanted to say they were handling his head much too roughly, wheeling the stretcher much too hard. “Easy,” he finally said, “or I die.”

“Were you planning anything for dinner tonight?” Mr. Singerton said.

“Same as always: something nothing for Warren and me.”

“Like to eat out then? This might seem strange—how it started off I mean—though I have seen you on the stairway.”

“Seen you also. You must work nights, because the only times I've seen you is during the day.”

“I write technical brochures, so I can work home as long as I hand in my copy at the specified time.”

“To work in your apartment and get well paid for it would be the best kind of work I'd like to do. But I don't know anything about writing except for letters. Plus a journal I've been keeping on and off since Warren was born.”

“To me the worst thing about other people's journals is that I can't read them. I'm a born snoop.”

“That's probably why you picked up the bullet when Warren told you not to.”

“I knew it had to be something,” Warren said.

“You still want to go out?” Mr. Singerton said. “I can pick you up at six.”

“That's foolish,” she said. “If I lived below you then I could see you coming to my door, but not when I'm one floor above. I'll ring your bell when I'm ready.”

“But that wouldn't be proper,” he said.

“First saw it on the car hood,” Ron said on the phone, “just laying there. It's a bit ripped up now, but I got all the pieces and with Scotch tape I think you could read it. My girlfriend just didn't want to believe the note. Did the guy die?”

“Last we heard, he was living,” the detective said. “You stay there and I'll have a man get the note.”

“He's still alive,” Ron said to Loey. “Shot himself right in the head. I wonder what kind of gun he used.”

She grabbed most of the note which Ron had assembled on the counter, and ran out of the drugstore. Ron ran after her, shouted “You crazy? You want us both thrown in jail? The cops have my name. They're coming now to get the note. Bring it back, goddamn you,” but she got in a cab and one by one threw the pieces out of the window as the car drove away.

“Goodbye, Mr. Randall,” the intern said in the ambulance, and covered Mr. Randall's face with the top of the blanket.

“You were right, Bonnie,” Andrea said, removing her earphones. “Desk phoned for me to locate fourteenth-floor service to clean up 1403. That Mr. Randall. A suicide.”

Bonnie closed her eyes, was silent, tears came, said “I knew it. That breathing wasn't natural. It didn't sound like sleep or sex or dogs, cats or anything. It truly sounded like someone dying,” and she imitated the sounds she heard on the phone. “Like that.”

“If you ask me it still sounds like sex,” Andrea said. She rang fourteenth-floor service and got Anna on the phone. “Anna, this is Andrea. Mr. Hire wants for you to go to 1403 and clean up the room. I'm sorry, but there's been a suicide there, love.” Anna hung up. Andrea called back. “Anna, you feeling sick from what I told you? You see, Mr. Hire wants the room cleaned up immediately. He tried reaching you himself but you weren't in. They'll be police up there, so he wants you to try and do your best and clean around them. The fourteenth is your floor, isn't it?”